An aircraft may include an engine nacelle for housing a gas turbine engine. The forward most section of the engine nacelle is referred to as a “lipskin.” Conventional lipskins are made of aluminum.
An aircraft may utilize high temperature, high pressure air to prevent ice formation on the lipskin. The hot air may be ejected into a lipskin cavity, where it mixes with ambient air within the cavity to heat the lipskin. The high temperature, high pressure air may be supplied from a compressor bleed port of the engine.
Increasing the operating pressure and temperature of gas turbine engines is highly desirable because it can improve overall propulsive efficiency. However, a problem can occur if the operating temperature approaches or exceeds the use point of certain grades of aluminum typically used for engine nacelle lipskins.
To overcome this problem, higher grade materials such as aluminum alloys and titanium may be used instead to prevent structural distortion of the lipskin. However, the use of these higher grade materials is undesirable, as the higher grade materials are more expensive in raw form, and they are more expensive to form into lipskins.